


Movement

by Emeraldwoman



Category: Avengers (Comics)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-19
Updated: 2008-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:49:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1637399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emeraldwoman/pseuds/Emeraldwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessica Jones moves in to Luke Cage's apartment (between Alias and the Pulse/New Avengers)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Movement

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Miggy and Tom for the beta, and especially to Revena for the title. Because "And Then Their Baby Was Kidnapped By Skrulls" just wasn't cutting it.
> 
> Written for Ryuutchi

 

 

"Kind of weird to be here sober," Jessica said, and touched the spot below her belly where the kid was swimming. The kid didn't have to stress packing or moving or how badly she needed health insurance. _That's okay_ , she thought. _You just swim and grow, and I'll take care of the rest._

_Well. Me and your dad._

Who put down a stack of cardboard boxes, cracked his wrists and nodded. "Well, you been here hungover too."

Jessica looked at the living room. It all tended to brown. Brown carpet, covered in brown cardboard boxes, brown walls, brown coffee table, brown sofa where she'd bitten out her life story word by painful word. "Yeah, good times. So, why?"

Luke gave her his most patient look, which was about number three on the list of Things Luke Cage Could Do To Make Jessica Jones A Raging Hellbeast In One Second. "We been over this. Combined incomes and one place means cheaper rent, fewer bills, and one space for the baby."

Jessica opened a box and started taking out the piles of old newspaper that cushioned the mismatched glasses beneath. She had a lot of old newspaper. It turned out there was a good side to never doing the recycling. "So, why don't you move into my apartment?" 

"Because this is my neighborhood," Luke said flatly. "I aint leaving. And more people have walked into your place uninvited - Jess, we _done_ this."

Jessica shrugged and pointed at the boxes at his feet. "Is that the last of them?"

"Yeah. Van's gone."

"God, how do I own so much crap?"

Luke snorted. "Woman, you kidding? I had more stuff in prison."

Jessica's spine went rigid and she had to remember not to break the glass in her hand, which is why the words came out shrill instead of firm. "Ugh, Luke, don't-"

"It's just a word-."

"They're all just words, Luke," she said, and didn't make any comparisons to racial insults because she'd learned better. "Just don't. _Woman._ Like, _dog_. I don't need to hear that from my-" she hesitated, wavered, went for broke, "Partner."

Luke folded his arms. "Partner."

"What? You're my partner. Equal partners."

"We playing tennis?"

Jessica tipped her head back and snorted.

"So unless you want to be my sidekick-"

"No."

"Good."

Jessica looked down at her blue and grey sweats. "But only 'cause I don't look good in yellow."

"Right."

"But if I did I'd kick your ass and then you'd be my sidekick."

Luke's grin flashed white. 

She stood up, papers rustling as she shifted her weight. "What? You wanna test this?"

Luke leaned in, no longer amused. "Really?"

Jessica felt her shoulders tighten, bands of tension running across her ribs. "Really what?"

"You are seriously - seriously! - proposing physical violence as a diversion so you don't have to say what I am to you?"

She rolled her eyes and stepped backwards. "You're my roommate?" 

"Hah! I'm telling that one to my mama."

"Oh, God, I haven't even called my mom with the new address yet. I gotta do that, fuck." She caught his eye. "Boyfriend. Okay? You're my boyfriend."

It could have been okay, she could have been okay, if he hadn't gone smug and arms-folded again, bringing out his biggest shit-eating smile. "Was that so hard?"

Jessica felt her temper splinter like bone, fragments of rage working through her body. "Obviously, Luke, _yeah_. What have I been saying to you?"

"What the-"

"No! I tell you I have issues with intimacy and all that crap, I show you how fucking bad I am at all this about nineteen million different ways, and you keep pushing anyway. And then when I say it, when you force me to say it, you're a dick about it. It's always me giving in. Me moving into _your_ apartment. So I give in again and you're my boyfriend! Okay? _Happy now?_ "

She thumped to her knees, threw the glass back in the box, and started piling the newspaper on top of it, trying to ignore the lump of acid in her stomach. How far to the nearest bar - no, _shit_ , she couldn't do that to the kid - okay, how close was Carol and did she have enough friendpoints to call in a bitching session, and would a quart of Ben and Jerry's be enough to soothe her craving for her soon-to-be-ex?

Hah. And did Carol even have any icecream? She did weird food things for that black bathing suit. Maybe Jess should stop at the store on the corner.

If she could find her wallet somewhere in this fucking apartment.

This silent fucking apartment, she realised. Luke wasn't yelling.

Yet, she tried to tell herself, but there was a weird, sick kind of hope crawling up her throat. She pushed it away. You always had to pay. For every good thing, no matter how good, no matter how much you deserved it for having a shit life and losing everything over and over, when you finally got something worth keeping, the bill would come, and you had to pay.

The pile of paper crumpled as Luke knelt down on it, while she clenched her fists and shook.

"Yes," he said.

Jessica blinked. 

"Girl, I am so happy." He spread his hands. "You, here, and this kid inside you. I haven't been this happy in years."

"Oh."

He gave her the same shit-eating grin, lips curling over white teeth, but this time it was sexy, and she felt the slow burn begin. "Even with you bitching at me twenty-five hours a day about I don't know what. Jessica Jones is my girlfriend, and having our baby, and that's something so good I can't put words around it."

"Oh," Jessica said again, and put her hands to his face and drew his lips down to hers.

His lips were smooth and warm - his skin never chapped, even in a New York winter - but there was nothing gentle about his hands on her shoulders, or her mouth as she kissed and kissed as if she would devour him. That was the thing, or one of the things; no matter what she did, she could never hurt unbreakable Luke.

Except that wasn't quite true, maybe, and she didn't want to think about it now.

She broke away to say, "You have to listen to me more."

"Got it," he said against her mouth, and she got her hands under the hem of his shirt and lifted up and off. 

"And, really, don't call me woman."

"How about girl?" he asked, carefully pulling the sweatshirt over her head.

"Girl's okay." It was her oldest sports bra. She'd planned to move that day, not do this on Luke's living room floor.

But he didn't seem to care about the bra so she wasn't going to and if he didn't move faster with his belt buckle she was just going to rip those pants off.

He made it right before she seriously would have done it. "Girl's the same thing, only-"

"Shut _up_ , I'm trying to kiss you."

He peeled her out of her sweats and the completely unsexy underpants with the fraying elastic, and yanked her down on top of him. Something went crunch under his back, and she ran her hands down the rigid muscles of his chest, pressing with her nails, almost wishing she could mark him. He caught one hand and held it.

"How about you?"

"Less talk," she said, trying to tug her hand back so she could curl it around his cock, but his eyes were steady on hers and he wasn't moving.

He wasn't holding her hard, she could definitely get free; he was just there. Waiting.

"Okay," said Jessica Jones. "I'm happy too."

And kissed her boyfriend on the floor of their apartment while their baby turned somersaults underneath her heart.

She'd pay. But not now. 

 


End file.
